The Rewind
by Ghosts n' Stuff
Summary: Molly Ainsworth had accepted her role as a tithe. That is, until she witnessed something unthinkable, and decided to run away. River Gaines is a wanted criminal, on the run from Unwinding. Can these two runaways escape life in a "divided state" together?
1. Chapter 1

MOLLY

From the time I was able to speak, my parents constantly put the idea in my head that I was destined for something greater.

Of course, they loved my brothers and sisters as well, but among twelve siblings I was the clear favorite. They bought me gifts for no apparent reason, they praised me incessantly, placed the most trust in me as the eldest.

My parents were devoutly religious— evangelicals who tolerated no deviation from moral code, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant the infraction. Basking in their love, I became the perfect child. I did exactly what they wanted me to: when we went to mass, I sat in the front row, my voice the loudest during hymns. At Sunday school, my cardigan-clad teachers could always count on me for a perfectly correct answer, followed by an almost angelic, "Amen." At thirteen years old, while my friends were experimenting with boys, tube-tops, and eye glitter, I was wearing turtle necks, no make-up, a simple cross necklace, and tying my long blonde hair back in a bun.

That was also the year that my parents urged me to begin making my own sermons at youth masses, using my admirable talents to guide other young people into "the light." In short, I had become the most well-known and admired person in our entire parish. At that age, I somehow felt that what I was doing was right.

I also knew that I was to be a tithe—my zealous parents had decided to give up their eldest child to the church, forgoing tradition for once in their lives. To some extent I knew what the word entailed. I felt remorse at the prospect of never seeing my family again, but with the knowledge that my body was being given up for the Lord's work, I was content with my lot. My parents had agreed that they wanted to keep me for as long as legally possible, and so it was decided early on in my life that I was to be unwound at the age of seventeen and nine months. This prospect, though foreign and somewhat frightening, seemed far-off to me.

I lived as the perfectly contented child of my zealous parents for fourteen years.

And then my entire existence collapsed around me. I saw something that no one—especially not a fourteen year old child—should ever have to witness. My fate had transformed in front of my eyes. The word, "tithe," instead of the sense of purpose and importance that it had produced in the past, now filled me with paralyzing terror.

I knew that I had to get out. Though instinct told me to bolt as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I knew that I had to be smart about it. And so I bided my time.

I spent three years doing nothing but planning, planning and keeping up appearances. Outwardly, anyone would assume that I was the same perfect child.

Inwardly, I knew that the girl I had once been was dead.

"Molly, sweetheart?" my mother's gentle voice called up the stairs, "Are you almost ready? We have to leave soon if we're going to make it to the airport on time, you know."

"I'll be right down," I answered, doing my best to sound like my fake, perky self. After three long years leading up to this moment, I wouldn't risk ruining my chances now.

I hefted my brand new military-style backpack onto my shoulders, pleased that it didn't feel too heavy despite the massive amounts of clothing I had managed to stuff into it.

I started to walk out of the room, pausing to take a final look around at where I had lived for the past seventeen years. Looking at the soft pink walls and religious paraphernalia scattered around the room, I almost laughed at how juvenile it all seemed-of course, there was a reason for that. Most people my age would probably have redecorated their rooms by now. My parents had offered several times, but I had innocently declined. What purpose would it serve? I was never coming back here again.

I hurried down the staircase at my father's urgings, glancing out of the corner of my eye at the brochure hanging from our bulletin board. _Camp Spirit! _It announced in flowing golden lettering,_ Where your tithe can grow in the love of Jesus Christ! _

I frowned as I remembered the night I had asked my parents if I could go.

"_It's a two-week program, but I'll learn a ton, I'm sure. They have priests from all over coming to give sermons, and I'll be able to meet some other tithes too. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity."_

"_I'm sure it is Molly," my father answered. "I'm just not convinced."_

"_Is it the money? I know it sounds expensive, but I'm sure I could earn a scholarship or something."_

"_No," he said. "It's not that. It sounds great, and I know we can afford it."_

"_But?" _

"_But two weeks!" my mother sighed. "That doesn't leave us very much time to be together before the Operation," she said, making the word sound venerable. _

_I snapped. "Well maybe you should have thought of that before you signed me over!"_

_Their faces were identical masks of shock and hurt. In seventeen years, I had never once spoken out of turn with them. I moved quickly to fix my mistake. "I'm sorry. I'm just tired is all. And final exams are really stressful right now."_

"_Of course, dear," my mother said, placing her hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. I had to fight the urge to slap it away. _

It was a simple plan, really, but after three years of plotting I had made sure it was water-tight. My parents had paid the registration fee to what they thought was the camp, but what was really a bank account I had created with their help ten years ago that they had forgotten about. They assumed I would be in North Dakota for two weeks before coming home for two days and then going to the harvest camp. What they didn't know was that instead of getting off the plane in North Dakota, I would be making my way to Colorado on foot with $10,000 in my pocket and a backpack filled with hiking clothes for "camp."

Why Colorado? That was where my mother's sister had lived for the past ten years. Technically, Aunt June was also my youngest brother, Thomas's, godmother—to my parent's everlasting shame. However, between the two of them, they only had so many brothers and sisters, and, being the exceptional Christians that they were, they couldn't risk insulting her. In my sibling's opinion, she was odd; in mine, she was funny and creative—I looked forward to her yearly visits. However, these visits had ended because my mother, and my father by extension, hated Aunt June. She was unmarried at forty-eight, liberal, and, to make matters worse, she was an atheist.

She was also severely opposed to unwinding.

If I could make my way to her house and lay low for three months without being caught, I would be home free. Eighteen was the magic number, and if I had anything to say about it, I wouldn't be spending my birthday in pieces.

The drive to the airport was relatively painless, though my parents went on and on about how much fun I would have, citing their own camp experiences. I hardly listened, focusing instead on what had to be done once we reached the terminal.

Once we had passed through security and deposited my huge, useless trunk of nonessentials at baggage, my flight was already boarding. They walked with me as far as the gate. My mother was holding back tears—I had never spent more than one day away from her—and my father was continually clearing his throat. Well, they'd better get used to the separation. Either way this ended, they would never see me again.

"Have a great time sweetheart," my mother whispered as she hugged me, not noticing how little I responded to her gesture. "Write to us often."

"Can't do that mom. You know the camp has a strict policy about outside contact: no phone calls, letters, or emails."

"And we respect that," my father said, giving me a quick squeeze before turning to my mother. "Let's go Joanne. Her plane is about to leave."

They turned to leave, pausing once just before they boarded the elevator, waving. I lifted my hand in response, watching them until they disappeared behind the closing doors.

I waited a good ten minutes before walking back the way I had come, out of the terminal and toward the taxi station at the exit. There was a cab pulled up by the curb, ready to go. I walked up to the driver, rifling through my wallet before scrounging up a wad of twenties.

"All this is yours if you take me to the Kansas-Colorado border."

He looked at me suspiciously for a moment. "How old are you, kid?"

"Do you want my money or not?"

After a moment of hesitation he shook his head and answered, "No way. It's not worth it. Find somebody else to take you."

I sighed before pulling out an extra hundred and slapping it on the roof of the car on top of the twenties. "Take me to the state border, no questions asked."

His eyebrows shot up, but he said quickly, as if he were afraid I would change my mind, "Deal."

I started to get into the car, but paused as I saw an old, homeless man standing by one of the trashcans, his eyes fixed on the security guard standing a few feet away. He held a limp cardboard sign, though I had no idea what it said. "Hold on a second," I said to the driver, taking my money off the hood for good measure. "I'll be right back."

I walked up to the man, who stared unabashedly at me with sad, worn-down eyes. I dug in my pockets, produced the plane ticket, handed it to him and said, "Ever been to North Dakota?"


	2. Chapter 2

RIVER

I felt like I'd been transported back into one of those pre-war Westerns. You know, where the evil guys with thick, villainous moustaches bust into saloons and have gun fights with the sheriff and his Native American side-kick. I'd always been a fan of the villains—they seemed to be one step ahead of the goody-goodies who were trapped behind their precious laws and rules. And now, here I was, staring at my own face on a wanted poster.

My crimes were lined up like a grocery list. Theft. Breaking parole. Resisting arrest. And finally, the crown jewel: Attempted murder. Somehow, they looked that much more sinister printed in serious black letters.

"Armed and dangerous," it said. Yeah, right. Armed with exactly eleven dollars and sixteen cents, the keys to a motorcycle I no longer owned, and one beat-up bass guitar. Suburban citizens should be shaking in their boots knowing that a bad-ass like _me _was on the prowl.

Thinking of the guitar, I felt around on my back for the familiar touch of its neck, running my fingers over the crooked strings. I remembered the days before all the craziness, when I had been able to play that thing for days, no one telling me to do otherwise. At fifteen I'd run away with a few of my older friends, under the delusion that we were going to tour the country as a rock band. Sure, the way they'd spun it to me sounded great—no parents, no responsibilities. Just chicks, booze, and the open road.

And it had been great. That is, until the cops caught up with us. Apparently, it wasn't strictly legal for a minor to drop out of school and go on tour with three of his drunken friends. Who knew?

So they'd put me back with my dad, the absolute last place I wanted to be. He cleaned the little hell-hole of an apartment he lived in up of course, when Child Services came to investigate. But once they gave him the all clear, it was back to normal: roaches and worse oozing out of the drywall, no heat, no water, no electric. When I asked him about it, he would just say that paying the bills was my mom's job. Then I'd come back with, "Guess you didn't think running that knife into her chest through, huh?" and he'd punch me in the jaw.

After two years of living together, I suppose he'd had it with my lip. When he signed the unwind order, he told me I'd brought it on myself. After the deal was sealed up tight, he decided that it didn't matter what he did to me anymore, seeing as I would be chopped up and parceled out in a few months. If I'd thought I had it bad before, it was nothing compared to after the order was signed. Fists would come flying when I was literally doing nothing but sitting on the couch, brushing my teeth, doing my homework for once.

Being eight inches taller and thirty pounds heavier, he never guessed that I would dare to fight back.

After they took me in, I heard that I had become a household name. The crazy-but-true story had become a media sensation—what with my father playing himself up as the unfortunate husband of a depressed wife who had ended it all herself and a murderous miscreant son. Funny how I had always dreamed of being famous for my killer riffs—now I was nationally known as the seventeen year old who blew a hole in his dad's left shoulder.

Honestly, the thing that bothered me most wasn't the bad name the press gave me, the way the American public felt so sorry for my fiend of a father, or even the fact that I was going to be unwound after a two-month stay in a prison cell. It was how close I had come.

Two inches to the right and he would have been a dead man.

RIVER

I hadn't even planed on escaping. Truthfully, I spent a good four days just thinking about how unlucky the kid who got landed with my sick, screwed-up brain was going to be. On the fifth day, a cop came into my cell, unlocked the door, and told me to come with him. He sat me down in a holding cell on one side of a metal table, shut the door and—shocking me—stood on a chair to turn off the security camera pointed straight at me.

"Listen son," he said briskly, "we don't have much time, so try not to ask too many questions, okay?"

I nodded mutely, wondering if I was dreaming or not.

"I've been looking through your file. You're a messed up kid, sure: irresponsible, lazy, head in the clouds—"

"Did you bring me here just to insult me? Because I was having a pretty good time counting the ceiling tiles in my cell."

"Don't interrupt," he sighed, though I thought he looked like he was smirking for a second. "Like I said, I went through your file, and I only came up with one thing: you wouldn't have shot your father without good reason. From the look of your face," he said, gesturing to a purple bruise extending from my cheek to my neck, "I'd say he's been roughing you up for years. I tried to broach the subject with someone, but you know how it is. You're crazy and scheduled for unwinding. They don't care enough to pursue abuse charges."

He continued. "So I thought to myself, 'That kid has been taking it for years. Why now?' And then it hit me. Your mother. According to your dad she killed herself when you were fourteen. I read up on the trial though, when they investigated her death. You claimed it was murder, but between your dad's squeaky clean record and you being fourteen, no one believed you. Now your dad's trying to play the innocent card, but with a history of violence and your testimony in the courts that day, I don't buy it. And I don't think you deserve to be unwound because of what you did."

I sat up. Did my ears deceive me, or was he actually offering me my freedom on a gilded platter?

"So here's what we're going to do," he continued, oblivious to my astonishment. "I'll tell the head here that, after talking to you, I'm not sure that you're entirely all right mentally."

"Again, thank you," I said sarcastically.

He ignored me this time. "I'll recommend that you be transferred to a mental facility not far from here. Once you're there, you'll meet a guy named Kevin. He's my age—doesn't agree with the Bill of Life one bit. He'll take you where you need to go and give you some money."

I nodded robotically.

"I think that's all we have time for," he said, glancing at his watch. "Let's get you back to your cell and I'll go explain the technical difficulties we had with the security cameras in here, okay?"  
>He stood up, grabbing me by the arm roughly for show.<p>

"Okay," I managed to squeak out, "Sounds good."

It was just like he said. Kevin took me as far as the woods two towns over, handed me a fifty, and told me that I had about two days until the search started.

I had no plans now, other than to stay out of sight until my birthday, which sounded simple enough. I had passed by the wanted poster after a week of being on the run at a gas station, glued to the bathroom door. Needless to say, I was being much more careful now—avoiding places in the day, being cautious when venturing into towns at night, and tying my distinctive waist-length red hair back in whatever head gear I could find.

Mostly I stayed in the forest. Of course, being the rocker that I was, I'd spent nearly all of my money on food in the first three days. When I saw a fire in the distance and smelled something cooking, I didn't even stop to think about it. I just went.

I tried to be subtle as I approached the camp site, but a guy can only be so sneaky in combat boots in a forest. I snapped a twig after about two steps.

I cursed under my breath and froze instinctively as I heard the click of a gun. Slowly, I looked up at my would-be killer.

It was a girl, around my age with severely short, jet-black hair, who was wearing worn-looking, earth-toned clothes and heavy boots. She held the gun unsurely, even awkwardly, but something in her eyes made me certain that she could do real damage with it nonetheless. Her mouth might have curved gracefully if she had been smiling, but she had it fixed in an unwavering frown.

She looked me over once, took in my haggard appearance and tied back hair and said, without making it sound like a question, "You're an Unwind."

"Yeah," I responded, surprised. "My name's River. But how did you—"

"Know?" she asked, still training the gun on me. "It's written all over your face."

I swallowed and asked, "Who are you?"

After a few tense moments of staring down a menacing, black barrel, she lowered the gun and said flatly, "Molly. My name is Molly."


	3. Chapter 3

MOLLY

"So," I began, staring at him over the fire as he wolfed down the canned beans I'd had cooking over the fire, "River? How did you manage to be named after a body of water?"

He put down his bowl for a moment and chuckled dryly. For some reason, I had the feeling that hearing this boy laughing would be a rare occurrence. Not that he seemed serious per se, just…sad somehow. Worn down.

"Well," he answered, "to be honest, my mom was a bit of a hippy. She wore peace sign necklaces, fringed vests, everything. And she was really into nature. So she named me River. She always told me that I was lucky that she'd been thinking about water the day I was born—otherwise she might have named me Tree."

I smiled, then thought more into what he'd said. "Was? What happened to her?"

His face darkened rapidly, and he said, "She's dead."

From his tone and countenance, I guessed that there was more to the story, but I didn't ask.

Before returning to his meal, he untied a ratty blue bandana from around his head and let his hair fall down. I blinked in shock as I took in his absurdly long and bright red locks. "Are you sure you don't want me to cut that for you? I have scissors."

He shook his head immediately. "Nah. My mom almost never let me get my hair cut. She loved it too much. I guess I keep it this long for her."

I nodded, though I thought that escaping the Juvy-cops took obvious precedent over sentimental ties to hair.

He looked at my hair, and seeing the rough edges, inquired, "Did you cut yours out here?"

"Yes. A few days ago. I saw someone, an old friend from my church who moved away, the other day when I went to buy more food. I didn't think that she would recognize me, but she tried to talk to me about old times. I pretended I didn't know her and convinced her that I was someone else, but I wasn't about to take that chance again. I buried what was left miles away."

He nodded, understanding perfectly. "What did it used to look like?"

"It was mid-length. Blonde. Nothing to ride home about," I said.

He smiled again. "So," he said, between mouthfuls of beans, "You said church earlier. I take it you're a tithe?"

"Was," I corrected. "Was a tithe."

"Any story behind that?" he pried and added with loaded sarcasm, "What made you turn from the path of glory and grace?"

"I just…saw the light I guess," I answered vaguely, though I felt the usual chills on my arms and queasiness in my stomach as I remembered that day.

He raised his eyebrows, but said nothing more on the subject as he finished off the can of beans in one bite. Rounding out the meal with a resounding belch, he patted his stomach and said, "Well, I'll thank you for the food and…interesting company and be on my way."

"Here," I said, rummaging in my bag for another few cans of food, "why don't you take some of these?"

He looked uncomfortable as he replied, "Well…I would, but I don't think I can take your food from you. I mean, you must be as hard pressed as I am to find this stuff."

"Not really. That gun isn't the only thing I took from home—I took ten thousand dollars from my parents before I left too."

His eyes bulged, and he stammered out, "How did you pull that off?"

"Not important," I answered. "I'm good at planning I suppose. Just take the food. I'll be fine, I swear."

He nodded weakly, taking three cans from my hands. "I'm glad I met you," he said before turning and walking off into the woods.

It was only half an hour later that I dug through my bag and found all my money was gone. 


	4. Chapter 4

RIVER

Of course I felt bad about taking her money. Of course I did. Especially after she offered me food and the warmth of her own fire. And then, dropping that a-bomb on me as I was leaving. _Ten thousand dollars!_ Maybe if I'd known that before, I would have thought twice before snatching her little pouch stuffed with bills.

Who am I kidding? I would have thought twice as fast about when to take it.

I walked out of the woods in a happy fog, already planning on how I was going to fill my stomach. Oreos? Doritos? Or maybe just a case of Cokes. How long had it been since I'd eaten any of those things? Too long.

I walked into the store and spent a few moments browsing through the snack section. After a few moments of decision, I ended up with an arm-load of every kind of chip, cookie, and soft drink known to man.

As I dumped it all down on the check-out counter, I thought it odd that the clerk spent almost no time looking at the mound of food piled on the linoleum. He just zeroed in on my face.

"Don't I know you from somewhere, kid?"

Crap. Even if he hadn't seen the wanted posters, I should have known that gas station attendants had nothing better to do in their spare time than watch the news. I decided to play it innocent.

"I don't think so sir," I began. "Not unless you've seen my band's CD. We just put them up for sale this week."

"No," he said, refusing to be misled. "No, it's not that."

"If I could just pay for my stuff," I tried.

His eyes narrowed. "Eager to get out of here, huh kid? How old are you exactly?"

Double crap. "Turned eighteen last month." I barely noticed the bell on the door ringing as someone walked in, waiting nervously for his answer.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Because you look an awful lot like that kid they've been showing all over the news. The one who shot his dad in the shoulder and busted out of jail."

"You know," I said, running out of ideas, "I get that a lot. Must be the hair, or something in the eyes, at least that's what my girlfriend says—"

"I'm calling the cops," he said with finality. "Best not try to run away now kid. I've been chasing little scamps like you for years. We get a lot of theft in here."

At this point I knew I was done. Of course the cops would recognize me—I was a household name. Plus my hair was a dead giveaway. I should have just let the girl cut it. And once they found the bag of money in my pack, there would be no doubt of who I was, of what I'd done. Normal kids didn't go running around with multiple hundreds in their pockets.

It was just then that I felt a hand on my shoulder. "There you are. What's taking so long?"

I swear I almost passed out when I saw Molly behind me. I was speechless.

She sighed. "Is there a problem here?" she asked, looking challengingly at the clerk.

"Yeah," he answered, seeming almost as stunned as I was at her magical appearance, "this kid's wanted all over the place. I'm calling the cops on him."

She sighed again, rolling her eyes as if the situation were just oh-so-funny. "I told you babe," she laughed, "You've got to cut your hair or something!" Turning back to the man she added, "Every time we go out like this, people try to call the police. It's ridiculous really. I mean, would the real shoulder-shot kid just waltz into a convenient store like a moon-struck idiot when he's wanted in three states?"

I grimaced at her veiled insult, but I guess after stealing her money I deserved worse. I had a feeling I would be getting it when all this was over.

"So he's your boyfriend," the man repeated. I was utterly amazed that he seemed to be swallowing it.

"Until something better comes along," she laughed, and the man smiled. I chuckled weakly as well, trying to add to the brilliant lie she'd woven. "He just dyed his hair that way last week. He's in a band you know—thought it would look tough. Personally," she added with a sly smile in my direction that told me she knew exactly what had happened to her money, "I think it just looks stupid."

The man laughed once more, completely forgetting about his plans to call the cops on me. He rang up the food, but I hardly noticed. I wasn't very hungry all of a sudden.

As we left the store, he called out in a voice that made me nauseous, "When you get tired of hanging around with him baby, you know where to find me!"

She laughed, hiding her disgust and pulling me through the parking lot, across the street, and back into the woods.

"Wow," was all I could say. "You really came through for me there. When he recognized me, I thought I was done for. How did you know wh—" I stopped short when I caught sight of her expression. Even through the dappled shadows of the trees, I could tell she was supremely ticked off.

I expected the anger. What I didn't see coming from the Good Samaritan tithe was a quick yet painful punch in the face. Though I couldn't imagine she'd ever punched anyone in her life, she still managed to burst my lip. Through the blood welling up in my mouth I spat, "What the _hell _did you do that for?"

"How about because you stole my money, you sticky-fingered asshole!" she seethed. "After I gave you my own food, let you sit by the fire I made, and offered to cut your stupid Pippy-Longstocking hair! I should have done a lot more than punch you."

"Pippy-Longstocking?" I asked, confused.

"Pre-war," she said absently. "It's a book my parents would talk about sometimes. But that's not the point!"

"And what is the point?" I asked, touching my lip gingerly.

"That I should have let that gross gas station pervert call the Juvy-cops and laugh as they dragged you away. But I didn't."

"And why is that?"

She held up three fingers. "One, because I wanted my money back. Two, because I wanted to kick your sorry butt for stealing it from me. And three, the same reason we now have to stick together, to my eternal regret."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said, holding up my hands. "Back up. Who said anything about sticking together?"

"I did," she replied curtly, her eyes fixed on my face with a force that made me hold my hands up higher in expectation of a second punch. "Now that you know my name, where I am, and _what_ I am, I can't have you running around to every gas station in the county getting yourself caught and subsequently interrogated, can I? Plus, now that I know you can take a punch, it might be good to have you around as protection."

I had to hand it to this girl: she was definitely cut out for a life on the run. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to hang around with her. After all, she had money, food, a gun, and most importantly: brains. Something I seemed to be lacking. "All right Molly," I said. "You've got a deal."

"Good," she said, visibly relaxing. She turned to walk back to the campsite, but paused briefly to stuff the bag of money down the front of her shirt. "Try to get at it in there," she threatened, "and I won't be as kind as I was to your face. Got it 'babe'?"

"Got it," I said sheepishly, feeling somewhat like a whipped dog as I followed her up the hill.


	5. Chapter 5

MOLLY

It had been irritating at first. Irritating and inconvenient. It seemed in the beginning of our time together as if forcing him to come along had been a very large mistake. He couldn't possibly hope to carry his weight, wanted as he was in the towns we passed. So it always fell to me to sneak in unnoticed and buy food, clothes, and whatever else we needed, risking my own skin each time I did.

He also didn't have any money. He'd had only around eleven dollars in his pocket when we joined up, to my astonishment.

After a few days however, it became increasingly apparent that there were some things he greatly surpassed me in. First of all, his hearing—or perhaps it was more of a sixth sense that he possessed.

On the third day we traveled together, I had been walking mechanically through the underbrush when suddenly, he pulled me into a hollow at the base of tree and signaled for me to be quiet. Confused, I raised my eyebrows at him. He pointed his finger around the tree. I followed and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature creep over me as I saw two boys, maybe nineteen or so, walking over the ridge. Both carried guns.

"Naries," he whispered in my ear. Something about the way he said the word made it sound profane.

"What?' I asked, confused.

He looked down at me, smiling a bit. "Sorry," he said, "just some slang 'convicts' like me use. It means Mercenaries. They' re military boeufs who flunked out of training camp—even jarheads have to know some strategy. The government hires them to capture AWOL unwinds in rougher terrain where the Juvy-cops can't go."

"So they're hired thugs?" I said.

"Basically. I think I know these two. I forget their names though." After a few moments, they passed on in the opposite direction. "Come on," he said, standing up. "We should go farther into the forest. We'll be harder to track that way."

I nodded in agreement, glad for once that I had teamed up with River.

He was good at stealing things. When I decided that we should get a first aid kit, but thought that buying one would seem suspicious, he simply said, "I'll be right back," and returned a half an hour later with one in tow. He hadn't bothered to take money. "Save the cash for when we really need it," he told me.

"You mean like when we need to buy mounds of Oreos and sodas?" I asked sarcastically.

He laughed. "Exactly."

As we moved farther and deeper into the wood, I learned another one of his talents.

I had gone off to gather fire wood, trying to be quick about it because it was becoming dark. So focused was I on finding branches on the floor, I didn't notice the immense black form wading in the water of a nearby stream.

Only when I heard a drawn out growl did I turn abruptly to find myself only ten yards away from a black bear.

I froze, trying to remain calm and remember any knowledge I had of bears. Nothing came to mind. Just then, I heard a second growl, this one sounding smaller and more frightened than angry, from behind me. I turned my head and saw a second bear—a cub. I assumed the one in the water was its mother.

Even being a sheltered suburban child, I knew this was bad. I was between a female bear and her unnecessarily frightened cub.

The mother took two steps forward in the water, issuing what sounded like a warning call. I was petrified of course, but running seemed like a bad idea at this point. I thought briefly about climbing a tree, but decided it was an even worse plan. I'd seen bears climb trees. And when she reached the top, I'd be trapped.

I was still trying to decide what to do when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was River, the gun in his hand.

"You're not going to kill it are you?" I whispered.

He raised his eyebrows, but answered, "Only if I have to." He held the gun aloft and fired into the air. The bear flinched, but kept moving forward. "Move backwards slowly," he said, pulling me along with him.

We kept moving until there was nothing between the cub and mother, but still the bear kept coming.

"Drop the wood," he said. Funny, I hadn't even realized that I was still holding it. "Get ready to run when I say,"

I nodded. Not knowing if he saw it or not.

He raised the gun again, this time aiming at the bear. I held my breath and watched as, with an ear-splitting bang, the bear jumped in surprise as the bullet sailed through its front paw. River kept the gun trained on the animal until it turned its back on us and lumbered away, the cub in tow.

We both visibly relaxed as the two shuffled out of sight. "I'm glad they took a hint," he said, his voice a bit shaky. "I didn't want to kill it. If I had, the cub would have been as good as dead too."

"So you think she'll be alright?" I asked.

He shook his head in amazement. "You're the weirdest girl I've ever met, you know that? That bear almost charged you, and you're worried about its paw getting infected or something?"

I ignored this jibe, and said, "Thank you."

He shrugged, and tried to hand me the gun. "Anytime."

I shook my head and said, "I think you can hold onto that. Just in case we run into any more bears."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Guns and I don't mix very well." He placed the gun in my hand and began walking back toward the campsite, as if nothing unusual at all had occurred.


	6. Chapter 6

RIVER

She was bossy. You could tell that she had never been denied anything in her life. She was also seriously pessimistic, something that confused me completely. What did this girl have to be disillusioned about?

But Molly was other things too. She was smart, clearly. Self-sufficient. And if the encounter with a full-grown bear said anything, it was that she was jaw-dropingly brave. I'd met a ton of girls on that tour bus, but none of them would have seen that bear without crying or wetting their pants.

I was noticing other things about her too, little things that no one would know unless they spent every day with her like I did. She had a habit of running one hand through her short hair, leaving it a spiky mess. She hummed pre-war rock songs when she was bored. She never mentioned her parents—

only two of her brothers, Paul, who was twelve, and Thomas, who was only four.

I found myself curious about her past. About what had made her leave her entire life behind. But I knew that with Molly, I would have to give up something in return. But hey, she already knew I was a criminal. Could the rest really be so surprising to her? Didn't all of us delinquents come from screwed-up backgrounds?

She already knew about my band, my friends, my mom. But I knew nothing about her, and it frustrated me.

I stared at her one night, poking the sticks under the fire across from me, and asked, "Why did you decide to run away?"

She looked up at me slowly, indecision I her eyes. As usual, she had her guard up, but the uncertainty I saw there gave me hope. "What do you mean?" she asked, going back to tending the flames.

"I mean what finally turned you around? You were a tithe, right? And you told me you've been planning this whole lie about Spirit Camp or whatever it is for three years."

"So?"

"So what about the other fourteen? You never want to talk about it, I know. But I can't help wondering."

She stared at me stonily from across the camp. "I don't know what you're talking about. I ran away because I didn't want to die. No matter that garbage they spew about living in a separated state. End of story."

Suddenly, I was angry with her. I tell her everything—well, almost everything—and she's still sealed up tight. It wasn't fair. "Do you think I'm stupid, Molly?"

"No," she said softly. "I know you're not."

"Good, because from what I can see, it clearly isn't the end of the story. You put up all these defenses to make sure no one finds anything out about your past. We've been travelling like this for almost a month! Haven't I proven that I'm trustworthy? Didn't I save your life?"  
>Her eyes hardened. "Having second thoughts about that?"<p>

"No. But I sure as hell am not going to stay here where you're continually lying to me about your past."

"First of all," she snapped, standing up and tossing a stick violently onto the fire, making it hiss, "I am not lying to you. I'm just not telling you every little detail about me. And secondly, you're being a complete and utter hypocrite! You never say anything about your mom dying, even though I know there's something more to that story. And you certainly didn't volunteer that you were a thief and a killer when you were busy stealing my money! You have no right to know _anything _about me!"

Her shout hung in the air for a moment, almost visible as it hovered and gently fell to the ground.

"Then maybe I should just go." I said. My answer for everything: escape.

"Maybe you should." I searched her eyes for some betrayal of emotion, but none came.

Out of nowhere, a third voice chimed in. "Beg your pardon, but no one's going anywhere."

It was the Mercenaries, holding guns for each of us.

RIVER

It's hard to describe how I felt as I watched the Mercenary hold a gun to Molly's head.

I almost didn't register the fact that the second Mercenary has snuck up behind me, placing an identical barrel to my temple. I looked up, recognizing the face at last. From a distance, there had been some doubt, but now, my second thoughts had vanished. "Finn," I said flatly. Somehow, I found that I wasn't surprised by the fact that my old band-mate had been recruited to become a hired thug.

"How are ya, buddy?" he laughed, pushing the gun harder into the side of my head. Then, jerking his head toward Molly in a way I found I didn't like at all, he asked, "Where'd you pick up that piece?"

"Shut up, Finn," I spat, struggling against him without any results. It seemed like lately he had given up beer in favor of a dumbbell or two. Feeling his arm constrict around my neck, I gagged and thought, _or six_.

"Oh," he laughed again, "touchy. She your girlfriend or just some desperate groupie you picked up at a show?"

"_Shut up Finn!_" I screamed, this time managing to jam my elbow into his ribs, but still he held me in a vice grip.

Molly, this whole time, hadn't said anything. I looked at her, but she didn't seem afraid. She did have a concentrated look on her face, as if she were thinking very hard about how to get us out of this. I hoped she came up with something, because I was drawing a blank.

"Better stop, River," the other Mercenary hissed. I had never met him before, but he obviously knew my name from the orders he had to bring me in, or from Finn. "One more move and your brains'll be splattered all over these trees."  
><em>It's not my brains that I'm worried about.<em>

I was still fighting desperately with Finn when I heard the gunshot.

I felt myself, my entire body, freeze almost instantly. I didn't want to look. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to see another person stretched out on the floor, leaking blood. Especially not Molly.

I didn't want to look, but I knew I had to. What I saw made me want to faint.

The Mercenary was rolling among the pine needles, screaming and clutching at his foot, where a giant hole had now been blown in his left shoe. Molly was standing up, her face splattered with gore, but otherwise unharmed, pointing our gun at Finn.

Finn shouted at his companion on the floor, "Why the hell didn't you check to make sure if she had something on her? It's your own damn fault she shot you."

His only response was more pained screams.

Now that Molly had taken charge, Finn looked a little nervous. "Release him," she commanded, "Now."

"No way little girl. This one's worth too much money to let go. Why don't you just turn around and walk away?"

"Not a chance," she hissed, raising the gun higher.

I heard the second gunshot, followed by a scream that, to me, seemed far away. Then there was a third blast, right above me. With some surprise, I found that I was on the ground, lying in a pool of my own blood.

Then Molly was there, her terrified face above mine, saying things that I couldn't hear, no matter how hard I tried.

As the world was going dark, I thought I saw her crying.

When I woke up, I thought at first that I'd gone blind. Though I strained my eyes and waited at least five minutes for them to adjust, the world remained pitch black. I was starting to panic when I noticed a small point of light on the ground—the remains of a campfire.

I calmed down a bit, then jumped again when I heard someone sigh right next to me. I looked down and thought that I could perceive a small, curled form through the darkness: Molly. She was lying very close, pressed against my side. Only then did I realize that several coats had been piled on top of me—she must have been trying to keep me warm.

I shifted the coats off my body and felt the spot on my chest where I thought the bullet had hit. Though I was wrapped in several layers of bandages and gauze, I could feel a slight dampness beneath. Nervously, I wondered how long I had been out.

I tried to stand without disturbing Molly, but she started awake anyway, looking intensely relieved in the dark. "River," she breathed, "thank goodness. I was beginning to think that you weren't going to wake up, or that I'd given you too many pain killers or something. How do you feel?"

"Crappy," I said. "But that's probably what you'd expect after being shot in the chest. How long has it been?"

"Almost a week," she answered. "You woke up once before, but you were screaming so loud I had to sedate you with the one syringe in the first-aid kit. It was terrifying."

"Sorry about that," I said, wincing as I imagined it. I didn't remember anything about that particular event, most likely the result of those painkillers. "What happened to Finn and the other one?"

"Finn's dead," she answered without guilt or emotion, "I shot him between the eyes. As for the other one, I think he managed to crawl away while I was taking the bullet out of you."

"You took it out with your hands?" I asked, amazed.

"With gloves from the first-aid kit," she said, "but yes, with my hands."

"Thanks," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"Anytime," she said, quoting me and smiling.

After she re-built the fire and got some food in me, we sat in silence for a while, listening to the popping of the flames. When I happened to look up at her, she looked as if she was struggling with something.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she said, "My parents always told me that I was going to be a tithe. They fed me all of this religious crap about me offering my body up to the service of the Lord, and being like Christ because I was willing to sacrifice myself for something 'greater.'"

I listened intently, not wanting her to stop.

She continued. "When I was fourteen, they decided that maybe it would be a good idea if I knew a bit more about what was going to happen to me. They'd met a doctor at a church luncheon who worked in one of the harvest camps, so one day, they drove me there without telling me what I was going to see."

"They brought me into one of the operating rooms. At first, I thought they were unwinding me early—that somebody desperately needed my parts, and they couldn't wait any longer to harvest them. But instead, we were led to an observation room with glass walls, positioned on the floor above the operating room. And then I realized that they were going to make me watch."

"My parents were taken out of the room, they said that it was for my eyes only. Maybe they knew what it was going to be like, maybe they didn't—I don't know. They led this kid into the room, a boy about a year older than me. I thought I recognized him from school or some such place, but for the life of me I couldn't remember his name."

"He fought them tooth and nail. He even managed to break one of the doctors' noses before they strapped him down. I couldn't understand at first, why the boy was putting up such a fuss. Wasn't unwinding a good thing? Shouldn't it make him feel special, important?"

"But when they started taking him apart, I knew why he was screaming. It was a nightmare—the boy kept screaming, but for some reason they wouldn't knock him out. Later, I found out that they have to keep you conscious through it all, to make sure you know what's going on. It was a horrible cycle: he would scream, and they took his legs. He screamed louder, they took his hands, his torso, his kidneys, his liver, his spleen. They took everything, and I saw it all. I tried to get out of course, but someone had locked the door from the outside. I thought of closing my eyes of course, believe me—but somehow it seemed worse to let his death go without witness. I watched for him. "

"I watched until they took his brain, wiped off the operating table like it was a butcher's slab, and prepared for the next kid. After that, they let me out. I pretended like I was okay, but when we went home, I took a shower for three hours, hoping that it might wash away the images of what they had done to that poor boy. But they're still there."

"Oh god, Molly," I said, feeling slightly queasy at the end of her story. What sick people would force their children to watch something like that? _The same kind of people who would think of unwinding someone like Molly in the first place_, I answered myself. "I'm so sorry that happened to you." Somehow, that didn't seem like enough, so I added, "If I ever meet your parents, I'll kick their asses." I would do more than that, I promised myself. If I ever saw those people, I'd make them feel terrible about what they'd done to her. And then, if I had a gun, I'd shoot them both. This time I wouldn't miss.

She laughed weakly, hugging her knees to her chest as if she were afraid she was going to fall apart. I sighed, putting down my can of food and pulling her closer. To my surprise, she came willingly, leaning her head against my shoulder. "If it helps," I continued, "I'm just as screwed up. My dad killed my mom when I was a kid."

She looked up at me and said, "I thought so."

"You thought so?"

"Well," she explained, "you never wanted to talk about it. And after seeing your father playing up the cameras on the news, I can't say that I trust him enough to believe that story about suicide."

I sat silently, laughing at myself for thinking that I could ever keep a secret from her. Really, she would make the better criminal.

"And," she said softly, "I saw that bruise on your neck when we first met. At first I thought it could be from anything, but the more I looked at it, the more it started to resemble finger marks."

Once again, she'd hit the nail on the head. "Yeah," I admitted, "he used to beat me up when I'd talk back. It wasn't so bad, but after a while I guess he was getting tired of paying for my food and my one new outfit a year, so he signed the unwind order to get rid of me. That's when he really started to let his fists fly. I shot him in the shoulder after he gave me that bruise and threatened to break my mom's guitar." I gestured to wear the instrument lay, propped up against a log.

"How come I've never heard you play before?" she asked, nudging me gently in the ribs.

I sighed at her none-too-subtle hint and stood up to retrieve it. I plopped back down into my original seat and began to play a pre-war song I'd heard her humming once. As I plucked the strings, I thought that once my eighteenth birthday had come and gone, life could always be like this. A guitar in my hands, Molly's head resting on my shoulder, her scent, like green apples and mint, all around me. It didn't matter that I was a criminal, that she would never go back to her parents. We could be together, because it was meant to be that way.

When I leaned down and kissed her, tasting that same apple and mint combination as I did, I knew that this was more than any seventeen-year-old boy should be able to feel. But I did feel it. And at that moment, I decided that if someone were to unwind me right then and there, it would be okay.


	7. Chapter 7

MOLLY

I'd never had the time or patience to have a boyfriend in the past, but even to my inexperienced self, what River and I had seemed above the normal caliber of teenage romance.

My birthday came and went without incident, freeing me forever from the chains of unwinding. River celebrated by playing a few songs on his guitar, the only thing he had the energy to do anymore, aside from kissing me that is.

Rather than feeling intoxicated by this promise of freedom as I'd expected, I merely felt anxious. River's birthday was still about five days away, and I didn't know how long he could hold out. He'd seemed fine when he first woke up, and for the next few days after. But then, he began complaining of chest pains where he'd been shot, forcing me to go into town and buy more painkillers because he was burning through them so fast.

Then came the fever. He couldn't get up, he could barely speak. He conveyed through chattering teeth how extraordinarily cold he was while his face was covered in a sheen of sweat and it hurt my hand to touch his forehead for more than a few seconds. I covered him with every coat we owned between us, stole some blankets, and lay next to him at night to keep him warm, but nothing seemed to help—his body was racked with shivers just the same.

My continual refrain was, "Maybe we should get you some help. "

His unwavering answer was, "No, Molly."

I tried to reason with him, but either through the fog of judgment the fever created or sheer pig-headedness he always won in the end. "Come on," I would say, "It would take them a few days to call in the Juvy-cops, and then you would need time to recover from this before they would be able to unwind you. Your birthday might pass without anything happening."

"No," he groaned, his voice hoarse and full of pain, "I've told you over and over Molly, with all the advanced medical technology they have, they could fix me up in no time. I'd rather die out here with you than die in pieces on an operating table. We'll wait until my birthday. Then you can take me any damn place you want."

And we did wait. It was agonizing, not to mention dangerous.

Although I'd dragged River as far away from Finn's body as I could while he was still unconscious, there were men out looking for us in the woods now, armed with industrial flashlights and tracking dogs. We had moved several times, but now that River was so ill, I couldn't decide which was more dangerous: moving him and making him even more sick or staying in one place and waiting for the Juvy-cops and Mercenaries to find us.

I hardly left the cave we were using as shelter anymore, except to find food, blankets, or more medicine. Truthfully, I was afraid that if I left him alone, he would die. I was doing the best job an eighteen-year-old girl with no medical experience could do, but the terrifying truth was plain: if River didn't see a doctor in the next few days, he was going to die. That much was certain.

On the night before his birthday, I stayed up in the darkness, my eyes fixed on my watch. I couldn't make fires anymore without risking being seen by a member of the search party.

Everything was ready. I'd stolen a child's sled from the town and dragged River onto it. He was now covered in every kind of cloth I could find, while I was wearing nothing but a long-sleeved shirt and the old threadbare jacket River had been wearing when we first met. It offered the least warmth, so I wore it. I wouldn't risk him freezing in the harsh weather outside. The first-aid kit, even depleted as it was, rode shot-gun.

After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, my watch alarm announced that it was midnight. Leaving everything else in the cave, I grabbed the harness of the sled and began the long and arduous trek down the slope and to the hospital.


	8. Chapter 8

NURSE

When the sliding doors opened at 1:16 A.M., Nurse Karen Fraiser was just thinking how utterly boring the graveyard shift was.

Startled at the surprise entry, she looked up from her magazine to see a ragged, half-frozen teenage girl with short black hair and odd, even disconcerting, grey eyes. Karen stood up out of her seat and saw, to her amazement, a second teenager, this one a boy with carrot-orange hair that would have fallen to his waist had he been standing. Instead, he was awkwardly splayed on a children's sled—something unexpected in early November— his legs turned to the side so that he would fit.

"Can I help you?" the nurse asked with interest.

"Yes," the girl said, sounding out of breath and irritated at the same time, "you can. He's been shot in the chest. I took the bullet out a while ago, but he has a fever now. Can you help him?"

"Of course," the Nurse Fraiser answered indignantly. "I'll go and alert the doctor. You're lucky—he was just about to head home for the night."

The girl slumped into a chair, looking as if she might faint. "That's me," she whispered, just loud enough for Karen to hear, "Lucky."

As she hurried to find the doctor, Nurse Fraiser thought she saw the girl lean down and plant a gentle kiss on the boy's cheek. But she couldn't be sure.


	9. Chapter 9

It had been an agonizing wait, but finally someone—that annoying nurse from before—came to tell me that River was in stable condition. I asked if I could see him, but she said that he was sleeping, and that I should let him rest.

I'd been waiting for an hour, slumped in the uncomfortable plastic hospital chair and falling asleep when a man in a grey pinstripe suit walked up to me and said, "Molly Ainsworth?"

Instantly, alarms went off in my head. This man was way too dressed up to be someone unimportant, and, for that matter, to be in the all-night hospital of this rinky-dink little town. And he knew my name—not a good sign.

I told myself to calm down—River was eighteen, I was eighteen. They could arrest him, take him to jail where I would find some way to break him out, but at least they couldn't unwind him. Not anymore. "Who's asking?"

"Howard Rice, vice keeper at Willow Tree Harvest Camp. I understand," he said in a stiffly formal voice, "that you were the one who brought in the boy, River Gaines."

I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to conceal the terror that flooded my mind when I heard the words, _Harvest Camp_. "Yes. I did. One of your capable Mercenaries shot him."

"An unfortunate error," he said absently, as if brushing something unimportant and uninteresting off the bottom of his shoe. "But no harm done. He's here now, and that's all that matters."

I froze, my muscles locked in place. "What are you talking about?"

"You brought him in," he repeated, slowly, as if he were speaking to an idiot. "We're very grateful for that."

"I don't understand what you mean. Why are you thanking me? He's eighteen today. Today is his birthday. You can't do anything with him."

"That's where you're wrong Miss Ainsworth," he said gleefully, enjoying this. "You see, while today is in fact River's birthday, according to the records we pulled, he was born on this day at 11:27 A.M. So we still have about…" he paused, checking his stupid, fancy watch, "ten hours in which to unwind him before he _officially_ turns eighteen."

It was the second time in my life that I'd punched someone. I seemed to have done a better job this time, judging by the satisfying crunch his nose made when my fist made contact with it. And the way he yelped as he hit the floor. River would have been proud, but it hurt worse than the throbbing of my hand to think of him just now. I screamed, beyond reason, beyond caring. "You can't unwind him! Now or ever! He's eighteen! He's _EIGHTEEN_! You are not going to unwind him just because you came up with some clever little loophole! I. Wont. _Let_. YOU!"

Two nurses and one doctor were trying to make me sit down and shut up, but I wasn't having it. "You bastard! You complete and total ass! How can you live with yourself, doing this to children every day?"

He picked himself up off the floor, brushing off his now bloodied suit. His fingers closed around a silver cross that hung at his neck. He turned to me and said, "I do what I do in the service of the Lord."

I pushed the nurses and the doctor off of me, looked him straight in the eye and said flatly, "There is no god who would commend butchering children. Remember that." Before they dragged me away, I managed to launch a satisfyingly large glob of spit into his left eye. But it didn't really matter.

River was going to be unwound, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

LATER…

The harvest camp was just like I had pictured it: bright, too cheery, and pointlessly trying to cover up the fact that children were slaughtered here daily. They'd put me in a holding cell and called my parents, unable to bend the rules and unwind me since I was "officially" eighteen. Someone either considerate or malicious had left a small digital clock on a table in the corner. It read 9:46 A.M.

River was scheduled to be unwound in little more than an hour. I had spent the majority of the time in my cell pacing back and forth, trying to think of how I could rescue him. Twenty minutes ago, I'd come to the same conclusion I had in the hospital: there was nothing I could do.

First, there was the problem of getting out of my cell. Then, he was being held somewhere in the harvest camp—that much I knew. But where, I hadn't the faintest idea. Not to mention that he was probably being guarded since he was a criminal. Apparently, he'd taken the blame for shooting the Mercenary's foot _and _murdering Finn, seeing as he was going to be unwound anyhow. I'd been told by one of the keepers who brought me to the cell that he was being quite accepting of his unwinding. Perhaps she had thought that this would make me feel better in some way, but in fact, it had the opposite effect—I was furious that he was just giving up.

At 10:00 on the dot, a doctor walked into the room, interrupting my musings and not bothering to knock. He looked young, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, and nervous in some way, like the slightest noise would make him jump. "Hello," he said, awkwardly extending his hand to me while still half-way across the room.

I sat up, but made no effort to shake his hand. "What do you want?"

He cleared his throat loudly and came a few steps closer. I could see that he was sweating. "I've been told to verify that you're healthy before releasing you to your parents."

I snorted, sliding back down the wall. "Go ahead. You'll be wasting your time though."

"Why?" he asked, shocked.

"I'm not going anywhere with my parents. If they think I am then they're crazy."

"But they're your parents, aren't they?" he asked, blushing as I rolled my eyes at the obvious question. "And you're a tithe, not an unwind. So you must not have been a bad kid."

"I was the perfect kid," I answered. "I did everything they ever wanted me to do. I was their parrot—acting, talking, and dressing exactly like they did. And that's why I'm not going back. Because I'm not what they are—I'm the total opposite. I have more in common with a boy I met two months ago than I do with my own parents."

He stood silently, wringing his hands together. "So you're the one who was travelling with River Gaines? They told me he had a girl with him, but they didn't tell me it was you." He looked more nervous than ever when he finished speaking, staring at me as if I might spontaneously combust.

"Scared that I'll break your nose too?" I asked sarcastically.

"No," he huffed. "Don't be silly." But as he walked over to where I was sitting and started digging in his bag, I could see that he was blushing again.

He completed his examination fairly quickly, congratulating me on having avoided the Juvy-cops for so long in the wilderness. "It's hard to believe you made out so well," he said, closing the bag with a snap. "You must have been either very prepared or very lucky."

"Both," I said, briefly relating my escape method to his utter astonishment. "But why did you congratulate me earlier?"

"What do you mean?"

"You work here," I pointed out, "I thought it would annoy you when kids slip through your grasp."

"Oh no," he sighed. "To be honest, I just got this job because it pays well and no one else was hiring. I hate unwinding. I think it's awful. That's why they have me doing physicals and the like—I can't stomach being in the operating room."

"That makes two of us," I said, holding my stomach as a wave of nausea came on like always.

He noticed my eyes glued to the clock and asked, "Does he really mean that much to you?"

"Yes." I stated plainly. "He does. I'm in love with him."

He sighed again, looking at me with sad eyes. "I'm so sorry. I guess you picked the wrong person to fall in love with."

I shook my head, still looking at the clock. 10:49 now. "I don't think I did, though."

He gazed at me intently for a full minute, not saying anything. "What?" I asked.

"It's nothing." Then a beeper on his belt buzzed, and he briefly checked the message. "Your parents are here. Give em' hell for me kid."

I laughed, though my heart wasn't in it. "I'll just do that."

He unlocked the door and handed me to two burly guards. Obviously, my antics in the hospital had earned me a reputation. As they led me away down an adjoining hallway, I looked back and the nervous doctor pulling on a necklace, looking anxious. From where I was standing, I thought I could make out a cross.

My parents were waiting in the next room, exactly how I remembered them: naïve and seemingly perfect.

My mother was crying, my father furious. He made a point of slapping me across the face when the bodyguards deposited me in front of him. My mother sobbed harder as she heard me say, "Go fuck yourself."

His hand flew again, but this time I caught it in mid-air. "Let's not cause a scene daddy," I hissed. He dropped his hand and said, "You are no daughter of mine."

"Good," I said. Then, turning to one of the guards, I asked, "Can I go then?"

"What?" my mother shrilled before they could answer. "Of course you can't! You're coming home with us, and you're going to go to mass three times a day and see a youth counselor until we can find out what's _wrong_ with you!"

"There is nothing wrong with me, mother. I simply woke up and realized that I didn't care to be chopped up into pieces and parceled out like steak. That's all."

She wailed even louder as I condemned tithing.

I rolled my eyes and yelled over her sobs, "I'm eighteen now, and I can do whatever the hell I want. So I won't be seeing you ever again, and you can pretend as if you never had a daughter who went frolicking with Satan. Sound good?"

I didn't stick around to wait for their answer.

Twenty minutes. I had twenty minutes to stop the unwinding of the boy I loved.

When you run for exercise or when you're playing a game, you may think that you're sprinting;

you may huff and wheeze and think that you're running at your peak. But you're wrong. I ran twice as fast as I had in my whole life, flying through the harvest camp, not caring if I caught the attention of the ever-watchful keepers. River had told me that ever since the famed incident at Happy Jack, punishments for Unwind insurrection were doubly severe.

I flew past the hopeless faces of a hundred ill-fated children, trying not to think about the reason for their defeat, about what was going to happen to all of them. Or what might happen to River if I was too late.

I came to a skidding halt, panting like a dog, just outside of the building where unwindings took place, the place the children had dubbed The Chop Shop.

I burst inside and was immediately stopped by two glass doors, refusing to open without a doctor's I.D. Thankfully, I was wearing heavy hiking boots, so kicking through the glass didn't slow me down, though it took a few tries to make a sizeable hole. I slipped through, not caring as I felt my skin tearing on the jagged edges, beyond fretting about the blaring alarms I had set off. There were no doors or turns in the hallway, something I was immensely thankful for. Following its unwavering direction, I found myself in front of the operating room. There was a backlit sign just above the door, stark black letters that chilled my blood and hardened my bones.

OPERATION IN PROGRESS

I felt my body shudder and I had to fight the urge to slide down against the walls in defeat. But it could be someone else. It wasn't necessarily him. But somehow, I knew it would be.

Out of nowhere a doctor with a brow that looked permanently set in a frown burst from the doors, glaring at me with intense dislike before grabbing me by the scruff of River's jacket and pushing me roughly against the blank wall. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he spat. "Honestly. Those damn keepers don't know anything about keeping you delinquents in line. I'll make sure you're moved to the top of the unwinding list."

"I'm eighteen," I said, not bothering to explain what I was doing at the harvest camp—there was no time. "Please, who are you unwinding? Is it a boy named River? If it is you have to stop—he's eighteen, it's illegal—"

"Oh yes," the doctor said with an evil gleam in his eye. "You must be the famous Molly. That kid hasn't shut up about you for a second. It's rather annoying. Especially as we were trying to dissect his face."

The room seemed to be spinning beneath me, my footing all too unstable. "What did you say?"

"We're unwinding him right now. He'll be in pieces soon; we're almost halfway there." He smiled to himself and added, "His arms and hands were in excellent shape too. I'm sure that they'll go for a steep price. Was he an artist?"

"A musician," I breathed. "A guitar player. Bass. He had a band. He told me about it once…"

The doctor nodded. "Ah yes. I should have guessed. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to call security and have you escorted off the premises. Goodbye." Before he entered the room again, he stopped and turned back around. Digging in his pockets, he pulled out a small, gleaming object and held it out to me. "We found this in one of his pockets."

I almost laughed as I saw what it was—a small, silver peace-sign strung on a leather cord. I never noticed him wearing anything around his neck. Perhaps he had just kept it in one of his pockets, as a reminder of his hippy mother.

I slipped it around my neck, feeling the tears finally gushing from my eyes as the doctor walked back into the operating room and with a click, switched off the sign above the door.


	10. Chapter 10

RIVER

I remember Molly kissing my forehead in the hospital and the faint but familiar sound of her punching someone. I remember thinking, _at least it isn't me this time_. I remember being thrown into a hospital room, being cleaned and checked for signs of disease. I remember them pulling a tick off me. I remember the sting of a needle injecting me with sleep; the face of a young doctor, looking almost sick as he moved to strap me to the table. I remember the flash of a scalpel raised to the light; the haze of sleep settling over me; the dulled pain of being cut open. I remember a burst of loud yelling; commotion that nearly woke me from my drug-induced sleep; loud bangs and flashes of light. I remember the feel of something sharp and cold piercing and pulling at my skin again and again. I remember a crushing weight pressing down on my chest; voices growing dimmer and dimmer.

And then, nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

THREE YEARS LATER: MOLLY

Though the years have passed by me in a blur, I can still hear the song he played for me that night by the fire, I can still smell of the flannel shirt and cracked leather jacket he was wearing, and remember how it felt to kiss him.

After I learned of River's death, I admit I didn't know what to do with myself for months. Instead of assimilating back into society like I should have, I stayed out in the woods in my own self-imposed solitary confinement. Occasionally I would travel back to my hometown in Kansas to check up on things. My friends and neighbors barely ever recognized me. On the rare occasions that they did, they glared at me with undisguised malice. Apparently, the word had been spread about my frolic with the Devil. I learned that my middle sister had been tithed in my place—she volunteered. As much as I wanted to be able to mourn her loss, I could not. Honestly, I had hardly even known her. I also discovered that my brother, Paul, was taking after me; listening to heavy metal for hours in his room, wearing skinny jeans and band t-shirts, skipping church and going to the Waffle House instead. My parents had scheduled him for unwinding, citing that he was a disgrace to their family, and deserved it for his blasphemous behavior. I had him out of there, along with my youngest brother, Tom, who was now six, in a week. My parents didn't bother to send out a search party.

After I had turned twenty, I met Jack. He was my age—a dark and serious boy who had managed to establish a home for runaway unwinds in the deserts of Nevada. After I'd explained my history, he invited me to join the group as a trail guide, leading kids to other safe houses in the north or even taking them across the Canadian border, where unwinding was still illegal. He allowed my brothers to stay as well, living in the dormitories built beneath the sand.

His kindness was welcome, but it also created an unwelcome problem. I knew Jack's interest in me wasn't purely restricted to my leadership skills or trail knowledge by any means, but I managed to spurn any advances he made. He knew about River of course. Anyone who had access to a television knew of our connection-the news stations had refused to let the story of our unfortunate romance go, so much so that I hadn't been anywhere near a T.V. in almost a year.

It frustrated him to no end that he was being overlooked because of a boy long dead. _"He's gone Molly,"_ he'd sighed the last time I rejected him. _"When are you going to let yourself live again?"_

I didn't answer, because if I was being honest with myself, I didn't know the answer. Jack was kind, smart, funny, and brave, but all the same… he was no River.

I started going into town for the sole purpose of people watching—to see if anyone had been given his arms, his hands, his eyes. It was unhealthy of course, but no one tried to stop me. If Jack had learned anything in the year I'd been in his service, it was that I would not be controlled. Paul accompanied me on many of these trips, for what reason I did not know. Maybe he wanted to comfort me in my grief, or perhaps he was simply curious to see even a piece of the boy who had bewitched me so fully. I never bothered to ask.

I turned on the news one day out of curiosity and almost smiled as I saw the headline flashing on the screen and heard the anchor announce, "Francis Gaines, the father of the famed Shoulder-Shot Unwind, River Gaines, was arrested and convicted today for the attempted rape and murder of an eighteen year old girl. He was sentenced this morning to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Some suspicion has been aroused about the true cause of his wife's death several years ago. Though Gaines claims it was suicide, authorities have re-opened the case, and say that if sufficient evidence is found, Gaines may be subject to the death penalty."

My brothers continued to grow, happy in their new home. Thomas delighted in the amount of playmates and the absence of, "Boring Sundays." Paul similarly adjusted, spending more and more time with an escaped Unwind named Angie, who he seemed completely taken with despite the fact that she had been traumatized so much by her escape that she communicated solely through sign language.

Their progress made me exceedingly happy, but it seemed that nothing could ever completely heal me. The cold metal of the little peace sign that pressed against my throat was a constant reminder of what I had lost. Jack refused to give up on me, which was flattering, but also a complete waste of his time. Still, it was nice to know I had options, even if I wasn't planning on taking advantage of them, now or ever.

Sometimes we miss our happy ending by a hair's breath. Sometimes we have to learn to move on.


	12. Epilouge

EPILOUGE: REWIND

The sun beat down on me, and though it was over one hundred degrees, I knew I couldn't throw off my jacket. Soon, it would be dark, and the temperature would drop without warning.

The sand irritated my already destroyed skin, and I itched my arms, gritting my teeth as I ran my hands over the highways of stitches and staples that covered them and every other part of my body. I knew they were necessary, but really, I shivered to think what I must look like. The only thing clear of scars and thread was my face—everywhere else, I looked like a skinny, pale version of Frankenstein.

I squinted into the sun and remembered the absolute terror I'd felt when I had woken up on that operating table, my arms, legs, and torso hastily stitched back together, all the nurses and doctors splayed on the floor, and one sweaty intern standing above me, holding a bloody needle. Of course, that terror had quickly morphed into confusion, then gratitude. I kept wondering what had possessed that man, probably not much older than I am now, to take out an entire operating room filled with doctors and sew me back together.

I'd been thinking about his reasons a lot lately, and I was almost sure that it had something to do with Molly.

Of course, after escaping the harvest camp and hiding in the woods for a few hours until I "officially" turned eighteen, finding her was my first priority. I didn't expect that it was going to take me multiple years to do so. A few months ago, I'd gotten word from a friend about a rumored safe haven for AWOL unwinds, hidden somewhere in Nevada. Unfortunately, there was a ton of desert in between the borders of that state, so here I was, two years after my escape, combing the sand for any trace of my girl.

She was twenty-one now. I wondered how much she had changed. Was her hair still short, or had she grown it back out now that there was no reason to hide? Did she still hum _We're Not Gonna Take It_ when she was bored? Did she still smell of apples and mint? And, most importantly, did she miss me, or had she found someone else in the span of two years? It made me sick to think about it, about Molly belonging to anyone but me. But I couldn't do anything about it. It was likely that she thought I was dead. And even if she saw me now and she didn't have anyone else, would she want me? I knew I was a gruesome sight, broken. I thought of the few newspapers I'd managed to scrounge up and the stories they wrote about me. So far, they all ended the same way: River Gaines was unwound.

I smiled. Really, River Gaines had been _Re_wound. _I'm not an Unwind, I'm a Rewind._

All these things whirled around in my head, every day, every hour. But as long as I knew she was about there somewhere, I would keep looking. Sometimes you just have to work a little harder for your happy ending. And I would.

THE END.


End file.
